Jak być dobrym historykiem (polskiej nauki o literaturze)?,

Abstract

It can be established beyond all doubt that the “Polish theory” – on the contrary to the “French” or “Russian theory” – does not function as a medium of international academic literary studies. The starting point of my discussion is the question why. Against all postcolonial logic, I postulate that the core of the problem can be traced to the weak activity of our “small emigration”. It is therefore high time to reconstruct the “Polish theory” as an important part of East-Central literary studies, no less important than its Russian and Czech counterparts. Comparing concepts of a number of Polish authors with authoritative works by, among others, Bakhtin, Shklovsky or Tynianov, this article offers a provisional project of modern Polish literary theory. This project is proposed on the margin of the main methodological problem of this issue – how to write today, in the age of the constructivist movement, the “real” history of scientific cultures.